Birds of Oregon and Washington 151 



sary, but one should notice these special marks : 

 The body is in appearance rather long and 

 slender ; the bill, long and curved ; the lower 

 mandible (i. e. the lower part of the bill) being 

 yellow, the upper part, black ; two toes are di- 

 rected forward and two backward (a character- 

 istic of all Cuckoos). 

 Summer resident. 



THE WESTERN NIGHTHAWK. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION : 



Mottled gray, with wide wings ; on the wing high 

 in air, toward nightfall. 



Length, 10 inches. 

 Found everywhere in the States. 



Some of us associate with nightfall in our 

 boyhood two sounds from the sky which seemed 

 mysterious, and one of them sometimes, perhaps, 

 a little dreadful. One was the steadily repeated 

 nasal " Paent " (Chapman), and the other the 

 occasional sudden booming or whirring sound 

 which the Nighthawk, out of sight, would send 

 down to our ears. We may, from this boyish 

 experience, understand how the Indians became 

 superstitious respecting the latter sound, and 



